iADI Design MuseumPorta Volta / Monumentale
Have you ever noticed?
This exhibition has ended.
Michele Tranquillini's drawings of overlooked city details in Milan and Tokyo, from manhole covers to abandoned bikes, with a participatory sticker section.
Museum websiteMore in Milan
Poles, manhole covers, drinking fountains, tram wires, stickers, abandoned bicycles. Michele Tranquillini, an illustrator who draws maps and travel reports for newspapers and design studios, walks Milan and draws exactly the things everyone else walks past.
The show pairs a retrospective selection of his sketches from several decades with new large-scale drawings that set the density of Tokyo against today's Milan. Then you get stickers to mark how these objects make you feel, from curiosity and wonder to irritation and indifference: finally, somewhere to file your feelings about the bike that has been rusting outside your building since spring.
There are no published reviews, so judge it yourself. It closes on Thursday 15 October. The museum ticket is €15 (€12 reduced, under-10s free, cards only) and the museum is closed on Fridays.
Look for
The new Tokyo drawings
Look for the large-scale drawings made for this show, which pack Tokyo's density onto the wall next to contemporary Milan.
Decades of street sketches
The retrospective selection catalogues Milan's poles, manhole covers, drinking fountains and tram wires, drawn one overlooked object at a time.
The sticker section
Visitors stick on their reaction to each urban object, from curiosity and wonder to irritation and indifference.
Good for
- Going Solo
- Locals Who've Seen It All
Skip if
You came for designed objects: this is drawings of street furniture, not Compasso d'Oro pieces.
Also at ADI Design Museum
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
8
- ADI Design MuseumDeLo 99 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Photo Grant Deloitte 2026Courtesy of Triennale Milano
- Ettore Sottsass. Design MetaphorsCourtesy of Triennale Milano
- Peter Halleyfoto di Matteo Pasin
- Triennale MilanoMike Peel (www.mikepeel.net), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Pinacoteca di BreraKarlmontague / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Castello SforzescoJakub Hałun / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Palazzo CitterioGiovanni Dall'Orto / Wikimedia Commons